Nuclear Weapons & Stockpile

Even after excluding teleworkers from its accounting of COVID-19 cases around the enterprise, the National Nuclear Security Administration counted 132 active, confirmed cases of the disease among its workforce at the end of April, more than double the tally from the end of March. At the same time, a spokesperson at agency headquarters in Washington […]

It is time for a federal district court judge in Washington state to toss out the amended complaint brought by more than 300 workers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site who oppose mandatory vaccination against COVID-19, government lawyers said in filings last week. “Regardless of what procedural exhaustion requirements must be met to assert […]

Happy Friday, nuke-watchers. Before we head off for the weekend, here are some other stories RadWaste Monitor was tracking across the civilian nuclear power space this week. Situation at Ukraine nuke plants ‘challenging,’ but no rad threats to public yet, IAEA says Although the Russian invasion of Ukraine poses some danger to the country’s nuclear […]

The company aiming to build an interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in Texas joined the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in calling for a state lawsuit to be kicked out of a federal appeals court, according to a new filing on the docket. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s arguments against Interim Storage Partners’ (ISP) proposed […]

The Department of Energy requested $10 million to fund local and tribal participation in a quest to find a host community for a federally operated interim spent fuel storage site, according to a detailed fiscal year 2023 budget request released late last week. For the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1, DOE says it wants […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has made use of “Nonpublic Collaborative Discussions” on various issues since being given the option to use such private meetings in the fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, according to a recent report. “The NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act] for fiscal year 2021 included a change to the Atomic […]

The Department of Energy has signed off on a $5.4-million task order for Four River Nuclear Partnership to build an emergency operations center at the Paducah Site in Kentucky, according to a procurement notice posted online Friday April 22. Construction is scheduled to start this year, according to the DOE Office of Environmental Management budget […]

In a just-unsealed public version of a decision last month, a Federal Claims Court judge agrees Swift & Staley is too big to qualify for a new Department of Energy Infrastructure Support Services contract at the Paducah Site in Kentucky because of its “negative control” of a joint venture doing similar work at the time […]

The round up in last week’s Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor [Vol. 26, No. 16] should have said that the Savannah River Site took delivery of HEPA equipment for the Surplus Plutonium Disposition program. The story “Nuclear Fuel Services to start weapons-uranium work under sole-source NNSA contract” [Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor, Vol. 26, No. […]

Los Alamos National Laboratory appointed Evelyn Mullen executive officer for weapons, the New Mexico nuclear-weapons design laboratory announced Monday. In her new role, Mullen will be an “executive leader in the organization, with a focus on both tactical and strategic operational needs,” according to Los Alamos’ press release. She will report to Robert Webster, the lab’s […]

The Department of Defense wants to hire a new director for strategic deterrence and capability to oversee “efforts to modernize and sustain the nuclear deterrent,” according to a recent want-ad on the official federal jobs board. The director would be responsible for a swath of nuclear-weapons tasks that were once organized under the now-defunct post […]

Honeywell’s wholly owned subsidiary National Engineering and Technology Solutions of Sandia will be the prime contractor for the Sandia National Laboratories for another five years, the National Nuclear Security Administration announced this week. The semi-autonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency said in a press release that it exercised five options on National Engineering and […]

The Joe Biden administration’s pick to lead the Department of Energy’s nuclear power section is one step closer to the job after clearing the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Thursday on a voice vote. Kathryn Huff, who the White House nominated in January to become assistant secretary for nuclear energy (NE-1)  in DOE’s Office […]

The Pentagon and the National Nuclear Security Administration are still “sorting out” exactly how many nuclear-weapon triggers the military needs and by when, the head of the civilian agency said in congressional testimony Wednesday. Law requires the semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear-weapons agency to make 80 pits a year by 2030 — a goal the […]

Should the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state decide to grout much of its supplemental low-activity waste at an existing off-site facility, the process could start as early as 2027, a Savannah River National Laboratory official told a National Academies of Sciences panel Tuesday in Richland, Wash. Dan McCabe, senior scientist from the […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s fiscal year 2023 budget request includes everything permitted by the Joe Biden administration’s as-yet unpublished nuclear posture review, the Secretary of Energy said Wednesday in written testimony prepared for her first scheduled congressional budget hearing of the season. The nuclear-weapons steward’s 2023 request of $21.4 billion is around 3.5% higher […]

The Department of Defense wants to hire a new director for strategic deterrence and capability to oversee “efforts to modernize and sustain the nuclear deterrent,” according to a recent want-ad on the official federal jobs board. The director would be responsible for a swath of nuclear-weapons tasks that were once organized under the now-defunct post […]

Los Alamos National Laboratory appointed Evelyn Mullen executive officer for weapons, the New Mexico nuclear-weapons design laboratory announced Monday. In her new role, Mullen will be an “executive leader in the organization, with a focus on both tactical and strategic operational needs,” according to Los Alamos’ press release. She will report to Robert Webster, the […]

The company aiming to build an interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in Texas joined the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in calling for a state lawsuit to be kicked out of a federal appeals court, according to a new filing on the docket. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s arguments against Interim Storage Partners’ (ISP) proposed […]

DNFSB taking advantage of closed-door meetings, according to report to Congress The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has made use of “Nonpublic Collaborative Discussions” on various issues since being given the option to use such private meetings in the fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, according to a recent report. “The NDAA [National Defense Authorization […]

Honeywell’s wholly owned subsidiary National Engineering and Technology Solutions of Sandia will be the prime contractor for the Sandia National Laboratories for another five years, the National Nuclear Security Administration announced Monday. The semi-autonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency said in a press release that it exercised five options on National Engineering and Technology […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) cut the ribbon on the recently completed John A. Gordon Albuquerque Complex: a replacement for the 1950s era facilities that house around 1,200 employees and contractors and is sometimes called NNSA Headquarters West. NNSA Administrator Jill Hruby and Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) attended the ceremony, the agency wrote in […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management officially said in an April 15 press release it is expanding its Minority Serving Institutions Partnership Program thanks to increased funding for the program in the agency’s fiscal 2022 budget, which started Oct. 1. In March, DOE’s Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina said Minority Serving […]

A federal district judge in southern Ohio is allowing most claims brought by a group of local residents to proceed against current and former contractors at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site. With the exception of not allowing minor children to be plaintiffs in a lawsuit chiefly concerning property, U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley rejected […]

The Jacobs-led cleanup contractor the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory has lifted a self-imposed “stand down” order at the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project, an agency spokesperson said Tuesday. The contractor, Idaho Environmental Coalition, lifted the order March 31, the DOE spokesperson said in a Tuesday email. The spokesperson was responding to a Weapons […]

AVANTech, a Columbia, S.C.,-based radioactive and industrial water treatment solutions provider for the Department of Energy and commercial nuclear markets, said this week it recently completed expansion of its business development staff, by adding or promoting five managers. Tammy Monday joined AVANTech in January as vice president of business development for government services, working out […]

Happy Friday and happy Earth Day, nuke-watchers. Before you head out and enjoy all our little blue marble has to offer, here are some other stories RadWaste Monitor was tracking across the civilian nuclear power space this week. DOE unveils $1.6 million for help on nuclear power community outreach Awardees under a funding opportunity announced […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission this week continued to poke holes in the state of Texas’s lawsuit over an interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel proposed for Andrews County, arguing that the Lone Star State had no right to sue — and even if it did, that its case was badly flawed. Texas hasn’t shown […]

The prototype of a mobile nuclear reactor under development at the Department of Defense will be powered by advanced fuel sourced from within the U.S., the project lead said last week. The Project Pele micro-reactor prototype “will use fully unencumbered nuclear fuel,” program manager Jeff Waksman told RadWaste Monitor in an emailed statement Friday. The […]

Two of North America’s largest utilities are teaming up to advance the rollout of new advanced nuclear technology in the U.S. and Canada, the companies announced this week. Under their new partnership, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and Ontario Power Generation (OPG) plan to coordinate design, licensing and deployment of advanced reactors “as part of […]